Peer-To-Peer Streaming To Be Measured By Arbitron

ChainCast Networks, which is trying to popularize peer-to-peer streaming for Internet radio, received a boost earlier this week when Arbitron announced it would include ChainCast streams in its Internet radio measurement reports.

"Arbitron is a brand name in user measurement, so it helps us validate streaming traffic," says Joseph Rozenfeld, ChainCast's chief technology officer. "The biggest quest for peer-to-peer providers is to prove you have many people listening. This validates our traffic and allows us to sell our service to radio stations, whose advertisers need to know how many people are listening."

Thus, Arbitron's decision to report ChainCast streams will have an impact on Internet radio advertising, since it will confirm the audiences of the stations using ChainCast's peer-to-peer streaming technology.

ChainCast, which purchased StreamAudio, a network of streaming radio stations, conducts peer-to-peer streaming on those stations and sells the technology to other stations, including Cox Radio and Zima. It streams 300 stations from 20 media groups and claims to be the largest peer-to-peer streamer in the country, but is competing with others to popularize the new technology.

Peer-to-peer streaming connects users to Internet radio stations through other users who stream the same stations. They are connected to a server ChainCast develops, so they don't have to be connected through another server, which is much more expensive. "Streaming is difficult to the service provider from a cost standpoint, providers can't afford it," Rozenfeld says. "With peer-to-peer streaming, the cost is less because instead of purchasing bandwidth, you harvest unused bandwidth."

Bill Rose, Arbitron Webcast Services vice president/general manager, sees peer-to-peer streaming as the wave of the future. "It will change the economy of streaming," he says. The announcement means Arbitron will measure ChainCast properties in the Arbitron rating service. Arbitron Webcast Services regularly reports on the audiences of audio and video content on the Internet.

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